Cultural Untranslatability - Business English | Trường Đại học Hùng Vương

Cultural Untranslatability by Kanji Kitamura
Abstract: This paper proposes a possible concept of 'cultural
untranslatability' in translation, focusing on what it is, how
important it is, and when it occurs. The paper first explores
cultural concepts for understanding of culture. The second
part examines Hofstede's cultural dimensions and
establishes an experimental definition of cultural difference.
Drawing on actual translations between English and
Japanese, the third part discusses the importance of the
concept. Finally, it considers under what circumstances such
untranslatable items are de facto culturally untranslatable,
borrowing the concept of translation norms. The paper
concludes that cultural untranslatability is an important,
useful concept for translation between languages with a
great cultural difference, and the notion of correctness
peculiar to a socio-cultural context in a specific culture is the
deciding factor in cultural untranslatability.
Keywords: Culture, (un)translatability, Hofstede, norms Abbreviations SC: Source Language Culture TC: Target Language Culture SL: Source Language TL: Target Language ST: Source Language Text TT: Target Language Text Introduction
ranslatability/(un)translatability is a classic yet vast and fuzzy
topic; for instance, Catford (1965: 93) writes that translatability appears "intuitively, to be a rather than a clear-cut cline dichotomy",
and "SL texts and items are more or less translatable rather than
absolutely translatable or ". There are a nu untranslatable mber of
possible reasons why translatability can be described like this. In
addition to various differences between languages, there can be a
specific need (Hatim and Mason 1989: 12) or text purpose (cf. skopos—
see for instance Nord 1991: 22-30; 1997: 27-38; Vermeer 2004: 227-
238) for translation, difficulty in establishing objectified quality
assessment (e.g. Hatim and Mason 1989: 4-5), variance in translators'
textual competence, receptors' comprehension and mutual knowledge
(e.g. Bell 1991: 35-43; Neubert and Shreve 1992: 53-65; Hatim 1997:
1-12; Campbell 1998: 1-21) and so on. To deal with the topic, Catford
(Ibid.: 94) distinguishes linguistic and cultural untranslatability: "In
linguistic untranslatability the functionally relevant features include some
which are in fact formal features of the language of the SL text. If the TL
has no formally corresponding feature, the text, or the item, is
(relatively) untranslatable." For cultural untranslatability (Ibid.: 99),
"What appears to be a quite different problem arises, however, when a
situational feature, functionally relevant for the SL text, is completely
absent in the culture of which the TL is a part." After commenting that
cultural untranslatability is usually less 'absolute' than linguistic
untranslatability, he (Ibid.: 101) writes "In many cases, at least, what
renders 'culturally untranslatable' item 'untranslatable' is the fact that
the use in the TL text of any approximate translation equivalent
produces an unusual collocation in the TL". Based on this argument, he
(Ibid.) concludes "To talk of 'cultural untranslatability' may be just
another way of talking about collocation untranslatability: the
impossibility of finding an equivalent collocation in the TL", and "This
would be a type of linguistic untranslatability".
This discussion poses the following question: Cultural
What if there is an item which is linguistically untranslatability is an
translatable into the TL but culturally important, useful
untranslatable into the TC? Or in Catford's
concept for translation words (Ibid.: 102), what if a situational feature between languages
gives a 'cultural shock' yet no 'collocational with a great cultural
shock' in translation (e.g. the situational feature difference.
is incongruous or even disagreeing in the TC)? If
so, as Catford discusses at first, cultural untranslatability may be
distinguished, or at least, such an item possibly provides useful insights
for translation concerning culture.
Bassnett (2002: 40) criticizes Catford as follows: "Catford starts from
different premises, and because he does not go far enough in
considering the dynamic nature of language and culture, he invalidates
his own category of cultural untranslatability." On the other hand,
Catford (Ibid.: 103) leaves a message for the future: "If, indeed, it
should turn out that 'cultural untranslatability' is ultimately describable
in all cases as a variety of linguistic untranslatability, then the power of
translation-theory will have been considerably increased [...]." The
purpose of this paper is to propose cultural untranslatability, focusing on
what it is, how important it is, and when it occurs.
For the term '(un)translatability', Hatim and Munday (2004: 15) describe
it as "a relative notion", and it "has to do with the extent to which,
despite obvious differences in linguistic structure (grammar, vocabulary,
etc), meaning can still be adequately expressed across languages". They
(Ibid.) add "But, for this to be possible, meaning has to be understood
not only in terms of what the ST contains, but also and equally
significantly, in terms of such factors as communicative purpose, target
audience and purpose of translation". This paper primarily concerns the
'equally significant factors' in the latter part of their explanation and
attempts to illustrate those factors.
Before discussing any further, we first want to know whether cultural
differences in fact cause untranslatability. Considering actual translating,
this paper provisionally treats culturally meaningless or incongruous
items as 'culturally untranslatable.' The following serves as a sample; a
set of Japanese and English proverbs that metaphorically describe
personal characteristics, quoted from a study of American and Japanese
business discourse (Yamada 1992), followed by her comments: 
Deru kugi wa utareru (Yamada 1992: 33)
(Lit.) sticks out nail gets hammered 
The nail that sticks out gets hammered back in (Ibid.).
For Americans, a strong individual is a better one, someone who
can "stand on his/her own two feet"; someone who stands out as
an individual. For Japanese, the proverb reflects how a group
member should not stand out. In fact, translating the compliment
in English, "She is a real individual!" to Japanese becomes an insult: " !" (What a person with stron Kosei no tsuyoi hito ne g
individuality!). This pejorative remark has the combined sense of:
She is weird (different) and selfish (does what she wants without conforming). Yamada (Ibid.)
In Japanese culture, the nail (i.e. an individualistic person) gets
hammered (e.g. criticized) because it is a violator in the collective
society. Yamada's work implies that, if the English proverb is used as a
TT in the United States, it can be inappropriate in the TC (American
culture) where 'the nail that sticks out' is usually 'a better one'. The TT is
unlikely to be culturally congruous, while both are linguistically
translatable to each other with no collocation oddness. The sample
suggests the possible existence of 'untranslatability by reason of cultural
difference' that I use as a primitive definition of the term 'cultural
untranslatability' in this paper.
In actual translating, translators tend to manipulate (i.e. modify) or omit
culturally incongruous items, so that they eventually become
translatable and acceptable (for acceptability, see for instance Bell 1991:
167; Neubert and Shreve 1992: 69ff.). To focus on 'untranslatability by
reason of cultural difference', a culturally untranslatable item in this
paper means an untranslatable ST as it is before manipulation or omission takes place.
This paper first explores cultural concepts for understanding culture. The
second part examines Hofstede's cultural dimensions and establishes an
experimental definition of cultural difference. Drawing on English and
Japanese proverbs, the third part discusses the importance of cultural
untranslatability in translation. Finally, it considers under what
circumstances such untranslatable items are de facto culturally
untranslatable, borrowing the concept of translation norms. The paper
thoroughly examines Hofstede's concepts because it can be
interdisciplinary to translation studies, not everyone is familiar with the
difference between disparate cultures, and the theoretical connection
between his norms and translation norms is essential for the argument.
Exploration of Cultural Concepts
To begin with, it is necessary to have a general understanding of culture,
which is of interest to a number of scholars and researchers in
academia. I will examine some of the key concepts in different
disciplines. The purpose of this chapter is to have a sufficient
understanding of culture for the discussion, rather than to establish a
perfect definition that can be very complex and require substantial discussion.
A general view of culture may be Foley (1997: 108) in anthropological
linguistics: "A culture is a mental system which generates all and only
the proper cultural behavior." We may say that 'culture is a mental
system' as an initial idea. In translation studies, Snell-Hornby
(1988/1995) quotes Hymes to provide an important point: "Culture is
here not understood in the narrower sense of man's advanced
intellectual development as reflected in the arts, but in the broader
anthropological sense to refer to all socially conditioned aspects of
human life" (cf. Hymes 1964, quoted in Snell-Hornby 1988/1995: 39).
In ethnopsychology, there is a parallel that I also agree with: "In most
Western Languages, 'culture' commonly means 'civilization' or
'refinement of the mind' and in particular the results of such refinement,
like education, art, and literature. This is 'culture in the narrow sense.'"
(Hofstede 1991: 5) For the 'broader sense', Hofstede quotes the
following well-known anthropological consensus definition:
Culture consists in patterned ways of thinking, feeling and
reacting, acquired and transmitted mainly by symbols,
constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups,
including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core
of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived and
selected) ideas and especially their attached values.
(Kluchhohn 1951: 86, quoted in Hofstede 2000: 9)
In his extensive research and work, Hofstede (Ibid.) treats culture as
"the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members
of one group or category of people from another" which is, in his own
words, "a shorthand definition; it implies everything in Kluckhohn's more
extensive definition above" (Ibid.: 9-10). To construct my argument in
this paper, I follow the idea of 'culture in the broad sense' by Kluckhohn and Hofstede.
To position my view in translation studies, I will look at several
definitions; Newmark (1987: 94) defines culture as "the way of life and
its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular
language as its means of expression". He also writes "Culture: Objects,
processes, institutions, customs, ideas peculiar to one group people"
(Ibid. 282). This is practicable especially for actual translating, but
contains the 'narrow sense,' contradicting the idea that culture is a
mental system with specific values. Baker (1992: 21) uses 'airing
cupboard' as an example of what she calls culture-specific concepts that
is obviously the narrow sense, too. I am not even sure if her terminology
is appropriate, because I prefer the term 'socio-cultural object' (Hatim
and Mason 1996: 18) to refer to a single word or a combination of words
to signify one object, including her example. Hatim and Mason's term
seems suitable for the narrow sense.
Pym (1998: 177) uses the term 'interculture' to refer to "beliefs and
practices found in intersections or overlaps of cultures, where people
combine something of two or more cultures at once". In explaining the
term, he (Ibid.) does not define culture, suggesting "To avoid hasty
assumptions of monocultures I propose that 'culture' to be left
undefined, as the area where we have most to discover." He (Ibid.)
explains "More exactly, individual cultures can be defined by negotiation,
not as the sources and targets of texts but as resistance to the
movement of texts from one translation to another [...]". I agree with
the part "individual cultures can be defined by negotiation" and the idea
of the descriptive approach, but this is too abstract for my argument.
For this paper, I use the term culture in 'the broad sense' instead of the
ideas in the narrow sense above. My point here is that culture in the
broad sense should not be mixed up with the narrow sense, and I do not
mean to undervalue the significance of the 'narrow sense', which is
necessary especially for translating a socio-cultural object. For instance,
Newmark provides useful approaches to translating cultural terms,
although his work sees culture in the narrow sense (see Newmark 1981:
70-83; 1987: 94-103). In actual translating, a Japanese translation of
Baker's example 'airing the cupboard' (Ibid.: 21) can be 'Hoon tansu'
(my translation) that is a descriptive translation in Newmark's
terminology. Alternatively, transference (Newmark 1987: 81) can be
another approach which renders ' ' (cf. Takebayashi et earingu kabaado al. 1996).
Additionally, I would like to note several unique characteristics of
culture. First, culture is a general tendency different from individual
personality. Culture is shared with others, whereas individual personality
is not (see for instance Hofstede 2000: 2-3). Second, culture changes
(e.g. Nida 2001: 18-9), although national cultures are extremely stable
over time (Hofstede 2000: 34). The final point concerns the relationship
between culture and language: Language is a vehicle which reflects
cultural specificity, rather than part of culture (cf. Hatim and Mason
1989: 237; Newmark 1987: 7). Culture and language are perhaps two
independent but closely linked systems.
Definition of Cultural Difference
To establish a workable definition of cultural difference for the concept of
cultural untranslatability, I will examine Hofstede's cultural dimensions
and then provide 1) reasons why I adopt his work as my theoretical
framework and 2) counterarguments against criticism of Hofstede. In
brief, cultural dimensions are a set of theoretical concepts of culture,
generated from paper-and-pencil survey results collected within
subsidiaries of one large multi-national organization, IBM, in 72
countries (2000: xix). Hofstede establishes five cultural dimensions;
power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity and
long-term orientation. For the sake of brevity, this paper only discusses
individualism, which is defined as: "Individualism on the other side
versus its opposite, collectivism, is the degree to which individuals are
supposed to look after themselves or remain integrated into groups,
usually around the family" (Ibid.: xx). The term has to do with "the
relationship between the individual and the collectivity that prevails in a
given society" (Ibid.: 209). In some cultures, individualism is seen as a
blessing and a source of well-being; in others, it is seen as alienating
(Ibid.). As a comprehensive definition, individualism stands for "a society
in which the ties between individuals are loose: Everyone is expected to
look after him/herself and her/his immediate family only" (Ibid.: 225).
Collectivism stands for "a society in which people from birth onwards are
integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, which throughout people's
lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty"
(Ibid.). The table below exhibits 'Individualism Index Values (IDV) for 50 countries and three regions: Rank Country IDV Rank Country IDV 1 USA 91 28 Turkey 37 2 Australia 90 29 Uruguay 36 2 Great Britain 89 30 Greece 35 4/5 Canada 80 31 Philippines 32 4/5 Netherlands 80 32 Mexico 30 6 New Zealand 79 33/35 East Africa 27 7 Italy 76 33/35 Yugoslavia 27 8 Belgium 75 33/35 Portugal 27 9 Denmark 74 36 Malaysia 26 10/11 Sweden 71 37 Hong Kong 25 10/11 France 71 38 Chile 23 12 Ireland 70 39/41 West Africa 20 13 Norway 69 39/41 Singapore 20 14 Switzerland 68 39/41 Thailand 20 15 Germany F.R. 67 42 Salvador 19 15 South Africa 65 43 South Korea 18 17 Finland 63 44 Taiwan 17 18 Austria 55 45 Peru 16 19 Israel 54 46 Costa Rica 15 20 Spain 51 47/48 Pakistan 14 21 India 48 47/48 Indonesia 14 22/23 Japan 46 49 Colombia 13 22/23 Argentina 46 50 Venezuela 12 24 Iran 41 51 Panama 11 25 Jamaica 39 52 Equador 8 26/27 Brazil 38 53 Guatemala 6 26/27 Arab countries 38 (1991: 53; 2000: 215)
The index values range from 91 for the United States (high individualism
or low collectivism) to 6 for Guatemala (low individualism or high
collectivism), with an overall mean of 43 and a standard deviation of 25
(2000: 215). This can be interpreted as: 1) the IDV for Japan is
approximately the world average, and 2) the United States, Australia
and Great Britain have a high degree of individualism.
Hofstede provides value comparisons, 'cultural values and attitudes',
revealed through theoretical reasoning and statistical analysis. I partially
quote his 'Summary of Values and Attitudes Differences Found
Correlated with IDV', which explains characteristics of high and low IDV
countries at the national level. Low IDV High IDV Group decisions are better.
Individual decisions are better.
Interpersonal relations important for Intrapersonal hedonism important students' happiness. for students' happiness.
Friendship predetermined by social Importance of making specific network. friends. (2000: 226)
Similarly, Hofstede establishes societal norms for each cultural
dimension. Societal norms are "meant to be a value system shared by a
majority in the middle classes in a society" (Ibid.: 97). A value system
contains "both values as the desirable and values as the desired and is
only at some difference followed by reality" (Ibid.). His societal norms—
logical conjectures underpinned by survey results, evidence and analysis
—are convincing overall, as they portray the dimensions, although some
of them are results of induction. In his own words (Ibid.), "I complete
the picture with elements based on intuition rather than on empirical
evidence, much as an archaeologist completes ancient pottery from which shards missing". Low IDV High IDV 'We' consciousness. 'I' consciousness. Emphasis on belonging:
Emphasis on individual initiative and membership ideal. achievement: leadership ideal. Activities imposed by context. Self-started activities. (2000: 227)
I also partially quote some of the 'Key Differences in the Family and at
School' established for each dimension. The differences generally
correlate to a number of survey results conducted and analyzed by
various researchers in the past few decades (cf. Ibid.: 98-102). The last
pair of difference is usually applicable to the language combination of English and Japanese. Low IDV High IDV
Others classified as in-group or out-
Others classified as individuals. group. Harmony should always be Speaking one's mind is a
maintained and direct confrontation characteristic of an honest person. avoided.
Languages in which the word I is
Languages in which the word I is not pronounced.
indispensable for understanding. (2000: 236-237)
Borrowing from Hofstede's work, I define cultural difference as the
relative difference between index values for my discussion. For example,
the difference with respect to individualism between the GB and Japan is
43, calculated as 89—46. The difference between the USA and
Guatemala is 85 (= 91—6), which is the greatest with respect to cultural
difference of individualism. I use this numerical approach because 1) it is
easy to compare countries to each other, providing a clear idea of how
great the difference is, and 2) it agrees with the idea that index values represent , not absolute positions of relative countries: they are
measures of differences only (Hofstede 1991: 25). From this definition, I
can say that that there is a specific cultural difference between the GB
and Japan, but it is less than the difference between the world's extremes.
Note that the definition is simply an approach to have comparative ideas
on cultural differences which are generally difficult to describe in a
systematic manner. This approach does not give us any definite ideas on
translating; for instance the definition does not justify the idea that
translating between highly different languages is harder than it is
between relatively similar ones. As mentioned in the previous chapter,
culture and language are independent yet closely linked systems. The
scope of Hofstede's work is culture, not language. His work endorses the
cultural difference in the dimensions but nothing about translation
activities. This paper borrows from his work for the definition to picture
cultural differences—reflections in a language that may not perfectly
correlate with his research outcomes.
Additionally, his cultural dimensions suggest another unique feature
about culture. Because cultural difference is subject to the culture
combination, cultural untranslatability is presumably dependent upon the
language combination of the translation. This means that cultural
untranslatability is not equally applicable to all language combinations,
audience, translators, or even translation scholars. For instance, Canada
and the Netherlands have the same IDV value of 80, indicating that
there is no or only a nominal cultural difference of individualism between
the countries. Therefore, cultural untranslatability is probably
meaningless to Dutch-English translators, who are only familiar with these two cultures.
The central reason why I adopt Hofstede's cultural dimensions as my
theoretical base is that his work is widely used and generally accepted in
academia. For instance, in social science, Lawler and Bae (1998: 126)
declare "We employ widely used measures of national culture developed
by Hofstede". A number of textbooks in international management (e.g.
Lane et al. 2000: 82-101; Tayeb 2003: 43-86) substantially quote
Hofstede to cope with cross-cultural issues. In her study of linguistic
politeness, Fukushima (2000: 101-126) discusses whether British and
Japanese cultures are collectivist or individualist, and her conclusion
hinges on Hofstede. Although not subsumed under linguistics, his work
seems applicable to language activities pertinent to cultural studies.
To reinforce the theoretical base, I will examine criticisms of Hofstede.
The following is excerpted from Gooderham and Nordhaug (2003: 139- 140): 
The research methodology is entirely based on an attitude-survey
questionnaire, which Tayeb (1996) contends is the least
appropriate way of studying culture. However, for comparative purposes it is very efficient. 
The sample is not representative because it is drawn from a single
company comprising middle-class employees. 
Four dimensions are simply inadequate to convey cultural differences.  The research is dated.
For the first criticism, Hofstede's work suits this paper which aims to
compare cultures. There might be more appropriate approaches to
studying or concentrating on a single culture, but Hofstede seems best
for comparison purposes. For the second one, Hofstede provides his
answer in his work (Hofstede 1991: 4): Much of it (patterns of thinking,
feeling, and potential acting) has been acquired in early childhood (see
for details Gooderham and Nordhaug 2003: 140). The third one seems
rather pointless because probably no other academic research in relation
to culture is more detailed or accepted in academia. This implies that
Hofstede' work is the best possible option among concepts available for
comparison purposes. The last one is relevant to my discussion. For
example, McCoy et al. (2005: 211) write "While Hofstede's cultural
dimensions—uncertainty avoidance, power distance,
masculinity/femininity, and individualism/collectivism—are still widely
used in many disciplines, it is not guaranteed that the measures still
hold after over 30 years". As mentioned previously, I agree that culture
changes over time, and change causes shifts in Hofstede's index values.
This nonetheless does not crucially affect my approach because cultural
difference in this paper is defined as relative difference between index
values. For instance, if the current, real value of individualism for the
Great Britain is 86, instead of 89, the cultural difference between the
Great Britain and Japan can be 40 (= 86—46). The current difference
may be smaller, but this does not refute the fact that there is a cultural
difference. Mead (1998: 43) sums up the strengths and weaknesses of
Hofstede's: "No other study compares so much other national cultures in
so much detail. Simply, this is the best there is."
Importance of Cultural Untranslatability
Having outlined the definition of cultural difference for this paper, I
would like to discuss why the concept of cultural untranslatability is
important for translating. The central reason corresponds to Nida
(1964:12): "The best translation does not sound like a
translation"—'naturalness' is a key requirement for Nida (Munday 2001:
42). Indeed, an everyday translation setting often demands a quality
translation that exhibits 'naturalness', although the definition of 'quality'
varies according to the translation setting or purpose (e.g. Nord 1997).
The concept of cultural untranslatability is important when the cultural
difference is great because, without dealing with it, translators cannot
attain 'naturalness' or even convey the ST's intention.
To illustrate the importance of this concept, I look at Yamada's work
once again: "She is a real individual" (Yamada 1992: 33). This is
generally used to describe or compliment someone with a favorable
personal trait in the United States or presumably in many regions with
an individualistic culture. The quoted TT—"Kosei no tsuyoi hito ne"
Yamada (Ibid.)—is linguistically flawless but in reality problematic in the
TC (i.e. Japanese culture). As Yamada (Ibid.) explains, the TT is usually
used as an insult for an unwelcome person in the TC where the social
norms disapprove an individualistic personal trait. Not only the TT, but
also any text referring favorably to an individualistic person is in fact
unlikely to function in the TC, since this person would violate the social
norms. If the TT is used as it is to compliment someone—in other words,
the translator has missed recognizing and working on the cultural
untranslatability in the text like Yamada's translation—it does not sound
natural at all in the TC. The problem in this case is that the TT, a
linguistically fine translation with no collocation oddness, does not
convey the ST intention to compliment her, due to the research-proven
cultural difference that changes the definition of a favorable personal
trait and consequently the way or sense of complimenting. This sample
suggests that, in translation process, detecting and working on cultural
untranslatability in the ST is important for the TT to sound 'natural',
when the purpose of translating demands naturalness.
Dealing with cultural untranslatability probably has to do with omitting or
manipulating (i.e. altering or rewriting) the ST; e.g. rewriting in Lefevere
(1992: 9) or Bassnett and Lefevere (1990: 10). Looking at the sample
again, we may translate the ST, rewriting for instance 'She is a
considerate person,' which is naturally used to compliment someone in
the TC. You have now manipulated the ST but probably attained
naturalness or perhaps dynamic equivalence (Nida 1964: 159; Nida and
Tabor 1969: 22), depending upon the context.
There is abundant literature sources concerning some kind of cultural
untranslatability, although they do not specifically use the term. For
example, Misunderstanding in Social Life (House et al.: 2003) contains
pertinent articles, one of which (Turner and Hiraga 2003: 155) relates to
power distance, another Hofstede's cultural dimension. Buchanan (1965)
works on cross-cultural proverbs between Japan and the United States,
providing insights into the cultural difference. Below is a set of Japanese
and English proverbs that also pertains to Individualism, quoted from
Buchanan (1965: 64). The English one is a translation of the source in Japanese: 
Magaraneba yo ga watararenu (Buchanan 1965: 64; Nishimoto 1962: 195). 
Unless you are crooked you cannot get along in the world (Buchanan: Ibid.).
On the proverb, Buchanan (Ibid.) comments "What a commentary this is
on the dishonesty and deceit in the world!" His comment appears to be
made from the viewpoint of the TC (i.e. American culture). To
understand the proverb from the SC viewpoint, I return to Hosftede's
individual societal norms and key differences: "Group decisions are
better" versus "Individual decisions are better"; "Activities imposed by
context" versus "Self-started activities"; "Harmony should always be
maintained and direct confrontation avoided" versus "Speaking one's
mind is a characteristic of an honest person". One interpretation of the
proverb can be: 'Unless you are crooked you cannot get along in the
world because you need to smother your opinion to maintain in-group
harmony.' I assume that this prioritizing harmony over expressing self
appeared as 'dishonesty' for Buchanan. The original proverb primarily
denotes the way of life in Japan, rather than dishonest concealment of
real feelings. An English paraphrase of the ST can be: 'Concealment of
real feelings to maintain in-group harmony is a good or acceptable
practice' in the SC. This is usually natural in the SC but not in the TC
with a high IDV value. When an ST contains the notion of the English
paraphrase to construct a key part of the context, the ST may be
culturally untranslatable, possibly according to the degree to which the
paraphrase is incongruous to the TC; in other words, how great the
cultural difference is. With respect to individualism, there is a cultural
difference of 45 between the USA and Japan that makes a 'natural' item unnatural.
To illustrate the importance of cultural untranslatability, I have drawn on
linguistic items that comprise multiple words to represent certain cultural
specificity (i.e. culture in the broad sense). There are two reasons for
this: 1) connections between cultural specificity and Hofstede's societal
norms are helpful in discussing the importance, and 2) translating a
socio-cultural object (i.e. culture in the narrow sense) often leads to
discussion of semantic fields (e.g. Baker 1992: 18-20) or a search for a
cultural, functional or descriptive equivalent (Newmark 1987: 82-4).
Translating a socio-cultural object does not involve or consider the
cultural difference discussed in this chapter. Once again, culture in the
broad sense should not be mixed up with the narrow sense. This is why I
said 'cultural specificity', rather than 'situational feature' (Catford 1965:
99) which seems to include both broad and narrow sense.
Conditions of Occurrence of Cultural Untranslatability
In this chapter, I would like to discuss under what circumstances an ST
is in fact untranslatable, or what determines the occurrence of cultural
(un)translatability in the TC. This discussion is important because, for
instance, a culturally incongruous translation may be used as an
appropriate one in a translation setting where the target audience
accepts it. Using a descriptive approach, I will attempt to clarify the
ambiguity in the idea that "ST texts are more or less untranslatable"
(Catford 1965: 93). For this purpose, I presuppose that there are some
conditions of occurrence of cultural untranslatability, and there is a
deciding factor for such conditions. To give shape to a deciding factor, I
borrow the concept of translation norms (e.g. Chesterman 1997;
Hermans 1999; Toury 1995) that is helpful in contextualizing conditions
of occurrence and putting my discussion together as well.
A starting point may be the idea that translation can be seen as a norm-
governed activity. For instance, Toury (1995: 53-69) distinguishes three
types of norms; initial norms, preliminary norms and operational norms
as those applicable to translation. Chesterman (1997: 51-85) first
discusses social, ethical and technical norms and then subdivides
technical norms into process (or production) norms and product (or
expectancy) norms. Both Toury's and Chesterman's norms are sub- categorized differently.
There is an issue about the concept of translation norms: "While the
literature on the subject is substantial, there is no unanimity on
terminology or on the exact distinctions as regards the cluster of
concepts that includes norms, conventions, rules, constraints, and so on"
(Hermans 1999: 80). Likewise, Snell-Hornby (2006: 78) comments on
Schäffner (1999), which contains open debates on the topic, 'Translation
and Norms': "What possibly strikes the reader most [...] is again that
this is an issue not of content, fact or even perspective, but one of the
varying use of concepts". Furthermore, Hatim (2001: 70) writes "The
literature on the subject was extremely confused, and many
contradictory normative models were in circulation".
Nevertheless, I agree with the basic idea that language activities,
including translating, can be seen as norm-governed. Criticisms in the
literature are due to the disagreement concerning the terminologies and
the differing models established individually, not the basic idea of the
concept. A substantial amount (Hermans Ibid.: 80) of literature endorses
the concept (e.g. Hjort 1992; Lewis 1969), and ignoring this can be
rather unjustifiable. To understand the concept of norms, I should look
at plain and precise descriptions. Bartsch (1987: 76) defines norms as
the social reality of correctness notions (quoted in Chesterman Ibid.:
54). Hermans (Ibid.: 84) provides three aspects of norms; 1) the 'norm'
as a recurring (i.e. general) pattern in behavior, 2) the directive force
(i.e. pressure exerted on individuals' behavior) and 3) the content of a
norm (i.e. a value, a notion of what is correct). These not only explain
the concept of norms but also correlate closely with Hofstede's societal
norms which are observable patterns in behavior. In essence, norms are
those patterns or lead individuals to such patterns in conformity with
specific notions of what comprises correct behavior. A comprehensive
description for translating can be: "The notion of what constitutes
'correct' behavior, or 'correct' linguistic usage, or 'correct' translation, is
a social, cultural and ideological construct", and "Compliance with the
set of translation norms regarded as pertinent in a given community or
domain means that the product, i.e. the translation, is likely to conform
to the relevant correctness notion" (Hermans Ibid.: 84-5). Consequently,
"[...] what one section or community or historical period calls correct
may be quite different from what others, or some of us today, may call
correct", and hence "Correctness in translation is relative—linguistically,
socially, politically, ideologically" Hermans (Ibid.). One of the
implications here can be that the notion of 'correctness' is peculiar to a
certain translation setting—where the translator or the audience is. I
adopt the notion of correctness as the deciding factor for the framework of conditions of occurrence.
The deciding factor seems applicable to the literature: Hatim and Mason
(1989: 12) write "The translator's motivations are inextricably bound up
with the socio-cultural context in which the act of translating takes
place," and "Consequently, it is important to judge translating activity
only within a social context." I would argue that it is important also
because the notion of correctness is peculiar to a social context and
correct only in the translation setting. In the previous chapter, I quoted
two key words, 'naturalness' and 'rewriting.' Why does Nida (1964: 12)
claim "The best translation does not sound like a translation"? With
respect to cultural translatability, it is supposedly because 'the best
translation' has the notion of correctness peculiar to the translation
setting, conveying the sense of 'naturalness' in the TC. Why does
Lefevere (1992: 9) stress the effectiveness of rewriting? It is similarly
because 'rewriting' alters the correctness in the ST, so that the TT has
the notion of correctness peculiar to the TC translation setting.
Combining the ideas on translation norms and Hofstede's societal norms,
I presume that a to-be state of a culturally congruous translation can
vary according to the notion of correctness of the translation setting with
specific translation norms in a socio-cultural context with specific societal
norms. The contents of societal norms vary significantly according to the
cultural difference as defined in this paper with the research-proven
facts. Cultural untranslatability tends to occur when TT is culturally
incongruous with the notion of correctness in the TC where the
translation setting demands cultural conformity. When such conditions
are met, for instance, the samples in this paper are de facto culturally
incorrect and untranslatable. I conclude that cultural untranslatability is
a possible concept, and the notion of correctness peculiar to a specific
culture in the 'broad sense' constructs a required figure of TT and
determines cultural untranslatability in the TC. If untranslatability by
reason of cultural difference in this paper is seen as cultural
untranslatability, it may be distinguished from linguistic translatability. Concluding Remarks
To illustrate cultural untranslatability, this paper has examined culturally
incongruous items to the TC. The examples are unlikely to function as
they are in the TC, although they are linguistically fine items with no
collocation oddness in the TL. Without detecting and dealing with cultural
untranslatability, translators may fail to convey the naturalness or even the ST's true intention.
Because cultural untranslatability is not applicable to all language
combinations, the concept may be insignificant to translators or
translation scholars who work in a language combination that involves
no or only a marginal cultural difference. Depending on the local notion
of correctness peculiar to the socio-cultural context, however, some
translations can indeed be incompatible with the TC. Translating such
culturally untranslatable items entails sufficient knowledge about the
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